The Russian Concubine

40

Theo felt like death. But he looked very much alive. He was wearing his finest suit, the charcoal with the narrow pinstripe, a starched white shirt, and his favourite striped silk tie. A real Foreign Devil. Stiff and upright. Today Feng Tu Hong would see an enemy, but an enemy in control.

He parked the Morris Cowley in a back street in the Chinese part of town, tossed a grubby urchin a couple of coins to watch it, and joined the crush of bodies heading uphill to the square. A sharp wind snatched at hair and jackets and made people duck their heads under their woven bamboo hats. Theo lifted his face to it and felt it numb the sickening ache behind his eyes. He needed his eyes to be clear. He elbowed his way through the chattering crowd and could see no other fanqui as he passed under the writhing dragon archway into the wide open square. He paid no attention to the hostile looks. Feng Tu Hong was the only one he had eyes for.

‘Excuse me, honourable sir, but it is unwise for you to be here today.’

It was a small elegant man speaking at his shoulder. He was wearing the saffron robe of a monk, and his shaven head gleamed as if freshly oiled. He smelled strongly of juniper and his smile was as peaceful as a sunflower’s.

Theo bowed. ‘I am here to speak with the president of the council. At his command.’

‘Ah, then you are in safe hands.’

‘That is debatable.’

‘All things are debatable. But those who have faith in truth and are determined on the path, they will find awakening.’

‘Thank you, holy one. I will hold that thought.’

Qing Qui Guang Chang. Open Hand Square. It was the wrong name for it, Theo decided. The hands that were soon to be in front of him would be closed. In fear.

The square was cobbled and surrounded by teahouses and shops with vivid red banners waving in the wind. A startling gold-painted elephant’s tusk arched over the doorway of the colourful theatre that dominated one side. Everything was bright and decorated and seemed to sway with movement under the curling eaves of the roofs, flicking up strange carved talismans to the gods. The usual market of caged birds and sacks of spices from the southern provinces was banished today and in its place a small wooden platform, six feet square and two feet high, had been erected in front of the grand theatre entrance. On it stood a large ebony chair. On the chair sat Feng Tu Hong.

At his side stood Theo.

Eager faces full of anticipation lined the square, leaving the central area empty. They had trekked in from the fields and over from their offices or kitchens to be entertained, to have their daily drudgery relieved for one brief and dramatic moment. It was the display of power that drew them. It reassured them. In this changing and slippery world, some things remained the same. The good old ways. Theo could see it in their faces, and his heart sickened for them.

Feng raised one finger. Immediately the far corner of the crowd parted and a long column of grey uniforms and badly polished boots marched into the square. The Kuomintang. They acknowledged the president of the council, then formed an inner square and faced outward into the crowd. Their rifles bristled in their hands. Theo studied their blank young faces because it was preferable to thinking about why they were there, and he focused on one very upright soldier in particular who was having difficulty hiding his sense of pride. He looked all shiny and new, as if he had come fresh from Chiang Kai-shek’s military academy in Whampoa.

Soldiering was traditionally regarded as a lowly occupation in China, unlike in the West, but Theo had noticed a great change in Chiang Kai-shek’s latest recruits. These had their minds trained and indoctrinated, as well as their bodies, so that they believed in the task they were doing. And they were paid a decent wage for the job. Chiang Kai-shek was no fool. Theo admired him. But he feared that development for China would be slow. Chiang was fundamentally a conservative. He liked things the way they were, despite his posturing and promises of revolution. Yet this young soldier’s face burned with his blind faith in his leader, and that had to be good for China.

‘Tiyo Willbee.’

Reluctantly Theo turned his gaze to Feng. The big man was wearing his presidential ceremonial robes, embroidered blue satin over a quilted gold undertunic that made him look squarer and heavier than ever. A tall and elaborate black hat was perched incongruously on his bull-sized head and reminded Theo of the black cap of a hanging judge.

‘Watch for the first man.’

For a moment Theo did not grasp his meaning, but when a slow drumroll started up and from each corner a monk in saffron robes stepped forward and blew his long pipe in a loud wailing cry that alerted the restless crowd, he realised what Feng was saying. A string of eight prisoners was being led into the centre of the square. Their hands were fastened behind their backs with leather thongs, their shirts stripped from their bodies so that they were naked from the waist up, despite the winter temperatures. Except for one. A woman. She was second in the string and Theo recognised her at once. The plain submissive face that had buried itself in the cat’s mangy fur with such devotion. It was the woman on the boat, the one who had given him Yeewai. In front of her stood the master of the junk, the man who had made too free with his knife blade, and behind them stood six others, all from the same vessel.

‘You see?’ Feng demanded.

‘I see.’

Theo knew what was coming. He’d seen it before but it never grew easier to watch. The prisoners were made to kneel by the captain in the grey uniform and then kowtow to the president.

Feng sat stone-faced.

When a big man with a long curved sword stepped out into the middle of the square with slow dignity, the crowd roared its approval. He whirled the sword once around his head in a display of speed and skill and the action triggered two of the prisoners, no more than boys, to cry and plead for mercy. Theo wanted to shout to them that it was a waste of their last precious breaths. The sword rose and fell in turn on three necks. Gasps of awe flowed from the onlookers as the lifeblood spurted out. Suddenly a young woman rushed from the packed crowd of dark heads and hurled herself at Feng Tu Hong’s slippered feet. She clutched them and kissed his ankles with a passion.

‘Get rid of the bitch,’ Feng shouted, kicking out at her.

A soldier reached down and lifted her to her feet by her hair, so that they saw her face. It was beautiful but twisted with despair. She screamed, and the woman prisoner raised her forehead from the cobbles.

‘Ying, my beloved daughter,’ she cried out and received a rifle butt in her throat.

‘Please,’ the young woman sobbed, ‘great and honourable president, do not kill my parents, please, whatever you want of me, please, I am yours. I beg you, great one…’

The soldier started to drag her away.

‘Wait.’ Feng lifted the staff of ancient ivory that lay on his lap. He pointed it at the Kuomintang captain.

The officer approached the platform in a stiff-legged march that did not attempt to disguise his hostility toward the president.

‘Throw the old witch that is among the prisoners back in her cell for ten days, and then release her.’

He flicked a hand in the direction of the young woman, and one of the attendants behind his chair led her away. She was mute now. Trembling. The captain bowed and snapped out an order. His face was stern with dislike. The female prisoner was escorted out of the square.

Theo leaned toward Feng Tu Hong. ‘If I offer good dollars for them all, would you do the same for the rest of the prisoners?’

Feng burst out laughing, showing his three gold teeth, and slapped his broad knee. ‘You can beg, Willbee. That would amuse me. I might even pretend to consider it. But the answer would be no. There is only one price that would buy their lives.’

‘What price?’

‘My daughter.’

‘Go to hell.’

‘You are fanqui. You shake with the dream sickness. You caused the death of seven men today, so you will not sleep tonight, I think.’

‘No, Feng Tu Hong, you are mistaken. I will sleep like a babe in its mother’s arms because around me will be the arms of Li Mei and the breast at my lips will be the sweet breast of your daughter.’

‘May the dragon bats devour your flesh this night, you foul-mouthed offspring of a demon’s whore.’

‘Listen to me, Feng. The only reason I came to the square today was to make clear to you that nothing will make me give her up. Nothing, I tell you. Li Mei will never return to your house. She is mine to care for.’

‘She is your whore and she brings pissing shame on the name of her ancestors.’

‘She changed her name from Feng to her mother’s name of Li because it is you with your evil trade who inflicts black shame on her. She asks how she can keep her feet on the Right Path when each day she must atone for the knowledge that her father is destroying men’s lives with the dream smoke and his greedy violence.’

‘The opium is Foreign Mud. It was you and your kind who first brought it to our shores. You taught us how to do business. And now the shipments continue every night without the guidance of Mason’s information about the movements of the patrol boats. They hunt down our night sails. So it is because of you that more men will be caught and more men will die. One by one in this Open Hand Square.’

‘No, Feng. Their blood is on your hands. Not mine.’

‘Wah, Tiyo Willbee, you can save them.’

‘How?’

‘Go out with the night sails again.’

‘No.’

‘I swear their cries in the afterlife will haunt your dreams in the prison cell.’

‘Does that mean you have spoken with that bastard Mason?’

‘Ah, indeed I have had that honour. It grieves me that because I will not deal with him alone, he intends to speak to your Sir Edward and deliver him your worthless neck. Tell me, Tiyo Willbee, who will care for your Chinese whore then?’